Life by a Thousand Cuts

I have been musing about the spending cuts recently announced by the UK's coalition government and thinking specifically about whether civil disobedience, as advocated by some extremists can be effective here.

Looking back 20 years to the Poll Tax riots might suggest that disobedience segueing to violence remains a powerful tool in British politics. And I am not certain that times have changed. Even so, the structural difference between refusing to pay money and not being given any is important.

For Poll Tax dissenters, the straightforward approach was not to pay the tax, so in fact, the Trafalgar Square rioters were the tip of the disobedience iceberg. It's hard to see how disobedience could work the other way around.

Could the unemployed return to the concept of the Jarrow Marches? Probably not for the simple reason that - particularly for those on falsely claimed disability benefits - the business of marching to London sort of proves the suspicion that many benefit recipients are physically (if not mentally) able to work.

The whole point of the Jarrow marches was to prove that able bodied men were not being given an opportunity to work - rather a different thing.

However, lest I sound too much like the middle class conservative that I am, there is for me, a key misunderstanding that infects some of the howling about the cuts - for example about outlawing the concept of 'a Council house for life'.

The notion, as I understand it, is that those who have the misfortune to live in council houses will periodically be tested to see whether they are earning too much to remain in said accommodation and whether, in fact, they could be taking their first steps on the housing ladder.

Well it's possible the move from council house to house ownership could be accomplished directly in certain parts of the country (although I doubt it). From where I sit in London, it's risible even to imagine such a direct shift.

But it should not be about the housing ladder nor the Thatcherite mantra of house ownership. There is nothing wrong with renting and a lot that's right. By far the majority of denizens of continental Europen cities do not own properties (at least in the cities). It's a rental culture with proper protections and competition between big, indeed institutional, landlords.

The vast majority of foreign white collar workers in this country rent property. It makes them more flexible/mobile and gives them a chance to see and live in different parts of a city (or, possibly, the country). I fear natural born Brits may have to think in the same terms.

In the future An Englishman's home will be someone else's castle!